Der Nussknacker

Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker" makes the hall shine shortly before Christmas: dance, fairy tale, confectionery and orchestral splendour combine into one of those great warhorses that one always wants to hear again. All the more exciting is how this evening opens up the familiar classic. Ethel Smyth stands alongside Stravinsky, Debussy and women's rights as an important artist: combative, idiosyncratic and anything but a marginal figure.